The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

When I indicated that I could help out slightly before I left, at least helping to train some warriors, the Blackrock dark dwarf tribe became even friendlier towards me.

Not only did they voluntarily tell me about their teleportation portal, they even brought out some magical gems as payment. I felt rather awkward about their generosity.

Unlike their relatives, the gray dwarves who lived in the Underground, these dark dwarves were truly simple-minded. Still, it was quite easy to understand why. The gray dwarves had been exiled because they were too evil, while the dark dwarves had been exiled because they loved warfare too much.

But from what I could tell, no matter what their ancestors were like, these current dark dwarves weren’t warmongers at all. At the very least, they no longer wanted to fight against everything now that they were in the Chaos Abyss.

A group of young dark dwarves were waving metal weapons around on a platform in this fortress. Their stances seemed good, but I could tell that they all lacked practical combat experience. This was quite rare in the Chaos Abyss.

I asked Morr about this and learned that these young dwarves were mostly smiths and miners in their tribe. Since the dark dwarves’ current situation was dangerous, even these inexperienced young ones needed to start training for war.

“…There’s even a cook among them? That’s how much you lack people?”

Dwarves would be proud of being able to wield a hammer in the left hand and an axe in the right hand. However, I instead saw a dwarf wielding a ladle in the left hand and an iron pot in the right hand, along with a small oven on his back. He attacked with his ladle and defended with his pot, and sometimes even threw his pot for a projectile attack. This was such a wondrous scene that I dared not even look.

“Alaiton? Damn it, you secretly sneaked in here again! Go cook for us! If you burn the bread again, the boss will kill you!”

Alright, so it turned out that he really was a dwarven cook. I did my best to hold in my laughter as I watched him run back with his pot on his back.

The dwarves were foundationally quite skilled at fighting. They were able to properly use the martial arts techniques that they already knew. Time was limited, so it would be impossible to teach them something brand new. It would seem that I could only set aside my Chinese martial arts manual.

Only their elite warriors who had reached bottlenecks would be able to benefit from my advice in such a short period of time. And even for them, cultivating always required time as well as luck to accumulate the foundation. The lizardmen likely wouldn’t give them much time to cultivate before attacking.

While I did have methods to forcefully improve power level, there would always be losses with every gain. Those methods had severe side effects. If the dark dwarves’ strongest warriors suddenly died off in large numbers, it was likely that this entire dark dwarf tribe would die after I left even if they defeated the lizardmen.

I felt good intentions towards these honest dwarves, as honesty was so rare to come by in the Chaos Abyss. Since they didn’t try to scam or make me suffer in any way, I no longer intended to make them lose too much.

“I have an idea.”

I did my best to come up with an idea which would help the dark dwarves improve their overall power level, and actually found a method that might work. Although the success rate might not be high, there would be no harm in trying.

“Hey, you guys… Have you heard of something called Law?”

Dwarves were quite disciplined as an overall species already. The dark dwarves were a militaristic society and adhered to discipline even more strictly. Since dark dwarves were still originally an Order species, logically they should be perfectly capable of using the power of Law.

“You’re spreading the power of Law down here in the Chaos Abyss? You’re spreading a power of Order in the land of Chaos? Are you certain about this?” Harloys couldn’t help but ask me this.

“Let’s try it. There’s no harm done even if it fails.”

Surprisingly, my experiment was actually a tremendous success. As the dark dwarves were highly accustomed to their military discipline of obeying orders, Law seemed just like another type of military discipline to them. It only took me twenty minutes of teaching to successfully have Morr access the beginner-level power of Law and enter the job class of Justice Knight.

This was a good thing, but it caused me to sink into deep contemplation.

Although Hell’s successful establishment and independence allowed the power of Law to break free from the Source of Order’s control, it wouldn’t change so quickly to become a power of Hell, as it was still foundationally a power of Order. And, this was the Chaos Abyss, where all powers of Order would be at their weakest.

A newcomer to any power of Order would always have to start by summoning their own new power of Order. This would typically take many failures before the first success. Yet, Morr managed to succeed on the third try.

It might have been more understandable if this had been the more powerful Concept of Holy Light instead of Law as belief in Holy Light had already spread to all the planes. But, the power of Law was still a relatively new power of Order, yet a resident of the Chaos Abyss was actually successful in being able to use it…

“…Either the power of Law has been increasing in strength far more than what we anticipated, or the Chaos Abyss itself is greatly weakening.”

“Or maybe it’s both at the same time,” Harloys suggested.

Our conclusion arrived as good news for us. But upon closer consideration, this didn’t seem very meaningful, as the great majority of residents in the Chaos Abyss were demons, who were pure products of Chaos.

[You might be wrong here. Since even demons are capable of summoning Holy Light, then why wouldn’t demons be able to believe in Law? Pure Chaos means the unknown that’s impossible to predict. Then, doesn’t this actually mean that it’s possible that the unknown might include some Order?]

The Goddess of Order’s words truly shocked me to my core. Demons that believed in the Concept of Law? Demons that would obey Law? When considering how demons were chaotic to the point of having any possible personality, it really was possible that there might such strange demons out there!

“…Is this the explanation for why even Chaos has some Order?”

[You’re overthinking things. This isn’t something highly philosophical. It’s just that there will always be strange ones who don’t fit the mold in every species. There are beastmen who absolutely love peace, and there are dwarves that are sly and selfish. The species doesn’t represent the whole.]

Why did this sound so familiar…?

“…Then, you’re admitting that you were wrong back in the day?”

I recalled how Astrya had, back in the day, been an extremist who had once stated that “every species should serve their own role, and every individual should carry out their proper task”, the most extreme possible interpretation of an Order-ruled society. But now she was saying that “the species doesn’t represent the whole”? Wasn’t this self-contradictory?

[…Cynthia was wrong in her beliefs, and I was also incorrect back then.]

Alright then, was this a roundabout way of saying that she was wrong? It was obvious that she was admitting that she was wrong, but she would only say so indirectly? Was this the pride of the Goddess of Order?

“Tsundere?”

“She’s tsundere, but not cute at all.”

[Shut up!]

For the time being, without worrying about if there were really strange demons out there that could adhere to Law, or if the power of Law could really take root here in the Chaos Abyss, just the fact that this power could give the relatively weaker factions in the Chaos Abyss a new way to survive would make it quite attractive.

While I idly chatted with my cat and System, Morr was showing off his new ability to his dark dwarf friends.

At this moment, a loud sound in the air and rapidly approaching magical power attracted my attention.

From what I recalled, in this level of the Chaos Abyss, there was only one type of creature who possessed such a powerful and corrosive magical aura.

“A black dragon is coming!”

I already prepared for battle the moment that I noticed a black dragon was approaching. I directly had the ballistae begin arming and the shamans begin preparing their Divine Arts. Everything would be aimed at the clouds. As long as a black dragon showed up, it would instantly be attacked.

Dragons loved to fly in the clouds as they would be safe and well-concealed. But with my guidance, all the attacks were aimed directly in the direction that the black dragon was coming from.

“You’re not worried that it’s an ally?”

“What ally would come here at this time? If it’s an ally, that means he’s my rival, so I need to find a chance to ‘accidentally’ hurt him. It’s even simpler if it’s an enemy as that will be an achievement for me. Since it doesn’t matter what side he’s on, it’s best to simply take him down first. Why hesitate?”

“What if it’s Hakas returning?”

“Then I’d take him down even faster! He would dare to come back without completing my mission!? It’s his own fault for getting killed then!”

Currently, the aforementioned Hakas was fleeing for his life. He had indeed almost been killed not long ago.

The moment that he appeared at the lizardmen tribe’s location, he only got the chance to say that he had come to help them when he heard an angry dragon roaring “You dare to come steal my business from me!?” Hakas was then knocked out of the air by a red dragon’s dragonbreath from the skies.

Right now, Hakas was escaping at his absolute top speed. His dragon instinct told him that this powerful red dragon was still watching him.